Ok the demo went well. Scary well. I may have a new problem: a whale on the end of my fishing line.
But this is how it is in cyclic existence. As Patrul Rinpoche said:
“Don’t you get it? If you’ve got money, you’ve got money problems. If you have a house, you have house problems. If you have yaks, you have yak problems. If you have goats, you have goat problems!”
Patrul was a great 19th century master of the dharma. He owned a metal cook pot, a cloak, and a copy of “The Way of the Bodhisattva,” and lived as a wandering mendicant. He never handled money. Didn’t make a big deal about it but if anyone ever gave him a piece of gold they’d find it later on the ground in the same spot they’d given it to him. #buddhism
Nowadays Dza Patrul would be despised as a homeless person. And actually he was in his time as well. He preferred it that way because if people caught on that he was a “living buddha” they’d only cause him trouble. So he was always pretty abused and flea-bitten. But he was a skilled teacher. Because of that he became known and could never stay put anywhere for long.
If Patrul lived today would he be a complete unknown, sleeping under bridges? Would he visit the public library once a week to post on his Mastodon account with 4 followers? Or would he just be in jail? I don’t know.
My guess is most of the buddhas in our world today opt for spending their time in prison. They could probably do more good there and not have to pretend to fit in with society, which would get them incarcerated in any case.
Anyway. Where was I?
Oh yeah. It a good day I guess.
@impermanen_ (thanks for the story!)
